Luxury Buyers Drifted North, But the Tide May Be Turning

Australia’s luxury housing map has been flipped on its head over the past five years, but the pendulum may finally be swinging back toward the big cities.

According to Ray White Group Senior Data Analyst Atom Go Tian, the pandemic years reshaped where prestige buyers put their money.

“If you were speaking about luxury houses five years ago, you wouldn’t even consider markets outside of Sydney and Melbourne,” he says.

But when COVID accelerated lifestyle migration and buyers were suddenly free to look elsewhere, the country’s wealthiest house hunters proved highly mobile.

“Luxury buyers proved themselves to be the most flexible and flocked away to where luxury was still sold at a discount,” Tian says. The result: Sydney and Melbourne were largely overlooked while regional prestige markets surged.

Both major cities saw their luxury prices spike briefly in 2021 as the COVID boom lifted the entire country, but the gains evaporated almost as quickly.

Rising interest rates and the lure of discounted luxury in the regions saw Sydney and Melbourne lose roughly half their 2021 uplift the following year.

The recovery since has been patchy. Tian says Sydney “grew six per cent between 2024 and 2025 after growing just two per cent between 2023 and 2024 to finally reach a new peak luxury price of $4.5 million”.

Melbourne, meanwhile, still hasn’t clawed back its pandemic peak. Luxury prices there rose five per cent between 2024 and 2025 after falling one per cent the year prior, ending 2025 at $2.6 million.

Over five years, the two major cities have been dwarfed by the east-coast lifestyle markets that stole their thunder. Sydney grew 35 per cent and Melbourne just 17 per cent.

Compare that with Brisbane (+77 per cent), Perth (+76 per cent), Adelaide (+73 per cent), the Gold Coast (+72 per cent), and the Sunshine Coast (+68 per cent).

That surge allowed the Sunshine Coast ($2.76 million) and Gold Coast ($2.86 million) to overtake Melbourne ($2.62 million) as the second and third most expensive luxury markets in the country.

Brisbane ($2.32 million) and Perth ($2.30 million) are now only 12 per cent cheaper than Melbourne, a huge shift from 2020 when both were 43 per cent cheaper.

Many assumed this decentralised luxury map was the new normal. But Tian says the last 12 months hint at a potential reversal.

“It’s easy to assume the new normal is a decentralised luxury market, but if the last 12 months signal what’s to come, luxury buyers may just be beginning to rediscover the value of Sydney’s prestige waterfront streets and Melbourne’s leafy inner suburbs.”

The price gaps that once tempted buyers north and west have narrowed. In 2020, Sydney was twice as expensive as the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast.

Now the gap is closer to 1.5 times. Against Brisbane and Perth, the premium has shrunk from 2.5 times to 1.9. “Sydney’s premium looks more justified than overpriced,” Tian says.

Melbourne is a more complicated story. Its long lockdowns hit confidence harder than anywhere else, sending affluent buyers to other states. But Tian believes that weakness may now be its strength.

“At only 17 per cent growth over five years, it significantly underperformed relative to its fundamentals as Australia’s second-largest city.”

If interest rate cuts arrive and confidence lifts, he says the very buyers who abandoned Sydney and Melbourne could return to find relative value they haven’t seen in years.

A bold 1950s home in Palm Springs, California, adorned with eight colorful murals by the late artist Shawn Savage, is coming to market ahead of the city’s annual Modernism Week.

The white stucco home on El Camino Way, built in 1954 and recently renovated, has an asking price of $2.295 million. Its staggered facade features three playfully abstract murals on either side of double-height hot pink doors.

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The sellers are Los Angeles-based partners John Freeman and Mathieu Faure, who knew it was “the one” when they saw it after several months of searching in the winter of 2023. “It’s a happy house,” Freeman said. “We really liked the feel of the house: the uniqueness, the openness, the brightness—and the art.”

Located in the Mesa neighborhood of Palm Springs, which backs up to the San Jacinto Mountains, the 2,237-square-foot house features three bedrooms, an angled bonus room and a yard with a pool, desert mountain views and another colorful mural running alongside the pool.

“I never thought in my life I would have a house with pink doors,” said Faure, a producer at Apple TV who is originally from Paris. “It’s so colorful, it’s so different. And so Palm Springs.”

Abstract murals can be found on the facade.Patrick Ketchum

The layout of the home creates a smooth flow from the front doors through the open-plan common area—a foyer, bar, and living and dining room—into the kitchen around a fireplace wall and out to the yard. A corridor leads to a private bedroom wing, where the primary suite has floor-to-ceiling windows and the primary bath is only a tad smaller than the bedroom.

Faure has filled the home with Jonathan Adler furniture, rugs and accessories, riffing on the energetic California vibes of the house to create an aesthetic of “modern American glamour,” he said.

“It was enjoyable for me to play with different types of furniture and make this house ‘happy chic,’ as I describe it,” he said.

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“He did a fantastic job,” said Freeman, who is an attorney and consultant. “It does kind of bring a smile to my face whenever I walk into the house.”

Since the furniture and decor were chosen for the particularities of the space, the couple is open to selling them with the home. Their West Hollywood house is already furnished; the collection doesn’t match the vibes of a Houston loft they bought near family; and Faure can’t imagine these pieces in New York—where he’s lived in the past—he said.

The duo bought the Palm Springs house for $1.925 million in 2024, according to property records, and will list the home Monday. They are represented by Stewart Smith, Patrick Jordan and Kevin Stanley of Bennion Deville Homes/Luxury Portfolio International.

The previous owners had purchased the home in 2021 for $975,000 and then spent more than two years and $700,000 on the renovation, according to Realtor.com. They commissioned Savage, a local Palm Springs artist and painter known for his joyful abstract work, to decorate the home.

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Savage, who died in 2024, lived in the Coachella Valley from 2003, and his work can be found in various local institutions and is on exhibit at the Illumine Gallery in Palm Springs. “Some artists pass through a place. Shawn Savage became a part of it,” the gallery’s description states.

Unsurprisingly, the murals invite lots of friendly conversations, as well as guided tours and interested lookers, but never to a degree that it disturbed the peacefulness of their home or the neighborhood, the sellers said. “It felt like living in an art gallery, and you have the exterior that you would share with the world,” Faure explained.

The neighborhood also played a role in their decision to buy, because of its access to the hiking trails of the San Jacinto Mountains, the lack of through-roads and the neighborly environment.

“It’s a very friendly place,” Faure said.

Luxury Buyers Drifted North, But the Tide May Be Turning

New data shows Sydney and Melbourne underperformed during the lifestyle-migration boom, but shifting price gaps suggest prestige buyers may be circling back.